Even after many decades of studying ozone and its loss from our atmosphere miles above the Earth, plenty of mysteries and surprises remain, including an unexpected loss of ozone over the Arctic this past winter, an authority on the topic said here today. She also discussed chemistry and climate change, including some proposed ideas to "geoengineer" the Earth's climate to slow down or reverse global warming. The talk happened at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), being held this week.

In a Kavli Foundation Innovations in Chemistry Lecture, Susan Solomon, Ph.D., of the University of Colorado, Boulder, said that the combined efforts of scientists, the public, industry and policy makers to stop ozone depletion is one of science's greatest success stories, but unanswered questions remain. And ozone is still disappearing.

"We're no longer producing the primary chemicals  chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)  that caused the problem, but CFCs have very long lifetimes in our atmosphere, and so we'll have ozone depletion for several more decades," said Solomon. "There are still some remarkable mysteries regarding exactly how these chlorine compounds behave in Antarctica  and it's amazing that we still have much to learn, even after studying ozone for so long."

The ozone layer is crucial to life on Earth, forming a protective shield high in the atmosphere that blocks potentially harmful ultraviolet rays in sunlight. Scientists have known since 1930 that ozone forms and decomposes through chemical processes. The first hints that human activity threatened the ozone layer emerged in the 1970s, and included one warning from Paul Crutzen, Ph.D., that agricultural fertilizers might reduce ozone levels. Another hint was from F. Sherwood Rowland, Ph.D., and Mario Molina, Ph.D., who described how CFCs in aerosol spray cans and other products could destroy the ozone layer. The three shared a 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for that research. In 1985, British scientists discovered a "hole," a completely unexpected area of intense ozone depletion over Antarctica. Solomon's 1986 expedition to Antarctica provided some of the clinching evidence that underpinned a global ban on CFCs and certain other ozone-depleting gases.

Evidence suggests that the ozone depletion has stopped getting worse. "Ozone can be thought of as a patient in remission, but it's too early to declare recovery," said Solomon. And surprises, such as last winter's loss of 40% of the ozone over the Arctic still occur due to the extremely long lifetimes of ozone-destroying substances released years ago before the ban.

Solomon also took listeners on a tour of gases and aerosols that affect climate change and described how these substances can contribute to global warming.

"On the thousand-year timescale, carbon dioxide is by far the most important greenhouse gas produced by humans, but there are some other interesting  though much less abundant  gases such as perfluorinated compounds that also last thousands of years and similarly affect our climate for millennia," said Solomon.

Increases in atmospheric "greenhouse gases" such as carbon dioxide trap heat in the atmosphere, causing the Earth's temperature to creep upward. Global warming is causing ocean levels to rise and could lead some regions to become dry "dust bowls."

Dealing with global warming has prompted a lot of interesting research on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, how to adapt to a changing climate and on the possibility of 'geoengineering' to cool the climate.

"Recent studies on 'geoengineering' the Earth's climate involve stratospheric particles of different sorts," she said. "Most of these schemes involve sulfate particles, but other types have been proposed."

The talk took place on Monday, August 29, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., Mountain time in the Wells Fargo Theater at the Colorado Convention Center.

Sponsored by The Kavli Foundation, a philanthropic organization that supports basic scientific research, the lectures are designed to address the urgent need for vigorous, "outside the box" thinking by scientists as they tackle the world's mounting challenges, including climate change, emerging diseases, and water and energy shortages.

"We are dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of humanity, promoting public understanding of scientific research, and supporting scientists and their work," said Kavli Foundation President Robert W. Conn in a statement. "The Kavli Foundation Innovations in Chemistry Lecture program at the ACS national meetings fits perfectly with our commitment to support groundbreaking discovery and promote public understanding."

The Kavli lectures debuted at the Anaheim meeting in March during this International Year of Chemistry and will continue through 2013. They will address the urgent need for vigorous, new, "outside-the-box"- thinking, as scientists tackle many of the world's mounting challenges like climate change, emerging diseases, and water and energy shortages. The Kavli Foundation, an internationally recognized philanthropic organization known for its support of basic scientific innovation, agreed to sponsor the lectures in conjunction with ACS in 2010.

But just think of all the stimulus that your tax donations performed. All of those scientists that got grants fed their families, invested in the stock market, went on vacations, bought new electric cars, donated to the DNC, called that lawyer at 1-800-MESOTHELOMIA and got compensated for their exposure to asbestos in their labs, etc..... You were their lifeline.

No kidding, it is a travesty. I asked a anti-CFC crusdaer once what the mechanism was that caused the CFC’s to travel from North America to the South Pole. No answer. The link between CFC’s and the ozone hole is tenuous at best.

I liken it to Spanish explorers discovering the Grand Canyon, essentially a big hole in the ground, then claiming that unless we damn the Colorado River the whole world will become a vast wasteland because of erosion......................

Really climate science should be renamed to climate politics b/c thats what it really amts to. Consider most weather forecasts are barely ahead of whats actually happening. If forecasting weather is so difficult then climate predictions are still well out of our reach. Sadly, this ‘science’ is happy to settle on what little they know now and call it good. Climatology seems the place flat world types have found a refuge.

Windmills looked good on paper. One of their unintended side effects is they unintentionally geoengineer local climate change. Extracting large amounts of energy from the very thin band of atmosphere where all evaporation takes place changes the climate.

18
posted on 08/30/2011 7:21:47 AM PDT
by Reeses
(It's a safety net, not a hammock!)

"On the thousand-year timescale, carbon dioxide is by far the most important greenhouse gas produced by humans, but there are some other interesting  though much less abundant  gases such as perfluorinated compounds that also last thousands of years and similarly affect our climate for millennia," said Solomon.

Maybe carbon dioxide is "the most important...", but what does that have to do with whether carbon dioxide has any significant effect on global climate? I wonder how Solomon would explain the facts shown in the paper found at geocraft.com?

“my theory is that the ozone hole is actually like a chimney, opening up to allow toxins??? to be released from the atmosphere”

The “ozone hole” is not an actual hole in the atmosphere that would allow gases escape. There is no “bubble” holding gas in the atmosphere, it is all held in by the planet’s gravity. The “ozone hole” would supposedly have let more UV radiation in to the atmosphere, by creating an area where it would not be reflected back into space as much as in the rest of the atmosphere.

In a Kavli Foundation Innovations in Chemistry Lecture, Susan Solomon, Ph.D., of the University of Colorado, Boulder, said that the combined efforts of scientists, the public, industry and policy makers to stop ozone depletion is one of science's greatest success stories, but unanswered questions remain. And ozone is still disappearing.

Unfortunately for us, Susan Soloman is a bit of a biased "scientist" who does not listen to anyone with a contrary question. There may be a correlation between global cooling and the size of the ozone hole. Okay, not necessarily global cooling, but unusually cold winter temperatures in the upper atmosphere.

Furthermore, the predicted sizes of the ozone hole may not correlate with the reduction of CFCs in the upper atmosphere. Upper atmospheric chemistry is complex with many assumptions and limited data, with its attendant limited methodology and results.

The ozone hole would supposedly have let more UV radiation in to the atmosphere, by creating an area where it would not be reflected back into space as much as in the rest of the atmosphere.

In hindsight the whole thing sounds preposterous. It's a pretty imaginative scam but it didn't involve massive sums of money and regulation like AGW does. The scientists weren't yet quite the power-tripping socialists they are today.

33
posted on 08/30/2011 9:06:52 AM PDT
by Reeses
(It's a safety net, not a hammock!)

"it is all held in by the planets gravity. " there is no such thing as gravity. Want proof??? take a basketball, spin it as fast as you can, and put a dime on it...what happens to the dime? we are held down to the planet by particle bombardment, the subatomic particles being attracted from space by our magnetic field.....on days with heavier than normal bombardment, you wake up and weigh more!!!!! :)

34
posted on 08/30/2011 9:21:15 AM PDT
by joe fonebone
(Project Gunwalker, this will make watergate look like the warm up band......)

since this has not been researched ( due to people believing in fairy tales out of the 16th century ) it is not fully explainable....but we have to assume these subatomic particles can and do penetrate everything......after all, they get through the ozone layer....

37
posted on 08/30/2011 10:28:39 AM PDT
by joe fonebone
(Project Gunwalker, this will make watergate look like the warm up band......)

NASA proved conclusively that the ozone hole is coupled to sunspot activity.

It is a self-regulating system that produces more ozone in response to higher energy from the Sun over the poles. It is for PROTECTION. Too MUCH energy from the SUN would kill everything, not ENOUGH would kill everything. Especially in an area where the SUN is visible for months in a row.

my theory is that the ozone hole is actually like a chimney, opening up to allow toxins???

It could also be a REGULATOR that controls the amount of energy flowing into the planet at the North and South Poles. The ozone is a production of the energy flow. An example is the 'air' around the brushes or poles of an electric motor. Quite a bit of ozone is produced in these areas.

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